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Monday, November 10, 2014

MEDIA MONDAY / EVERY 100 YEARS OR SO A REALLY GREAT BILLION DOLLAR IDEA ACTUALLY COMES TO PASS.

WHEN IN DROUGHT--A
century ago, the Panama Canal was completed.Forever, the shipping nations of the world complained of having to
travel around the Cape to get from one ocean to another.Slowly, the right people focused on creating
a canal through the isthmus of Panama to greatly shorten the time it takes for
ships to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific and versa vice.It was an idea whose time had come.

The Carlsbad Desalination Project, located in San Diego County, CA, at the Encina Power Station, will provide 50 million gallons of desalinated seawater per day.

A century from now, someone will be musing “what took them
so long?” when referring to how much time it took for bright minds of the early
21st century finally were able to built a facility in California
that converted sea water into drinkable water.

For centuries, huge parts of California are deserts,
including cities like Los Angeles and San Diego.So what will be hard for many 100 years in
the future is fathoming why “they” endured year after year of drought when all
along they had the technology to build sea water conversion plants.

Yes, Virginia for one-billion dollars, a sea water
conversion plant is being built in Carlsbad, California. And, it will come
online in about a year.Builders say
the plant, the largest desalination facility in the Western Hemisphere, will
produce upwards of 50 million gallons of water per day.**

KPBS recently quoted the plant builder asking him the reason
for the project. Here’s what he said:
“...the reason why we’re doing this is because the Pacific Ocean is not
dependent on rain or snowfall (sorry, Columbia River—you don’t count). It’s always going to be here. It’s the largest reservoir in the world for
that matter. So here we have a truly
drought-proof supply.”

** The EPA says, The average American family uses more than
300 gallons of water per day at home. Roughly 70 percent of this use occurs
indoors. Nationally, outdoor water use accounts for 30 percent of household use
yet can be much higher in drier parts of the country and in more
water-intensive landscapes. For example, the arid West has some of the highest
per capita residential water use because of landscape irrigation.

For the sake of discussion let’s say there are three members
in each family. That puts water use at
100 gallons per person.If we let’s
multiply 300 gallons times the population of San Diego County (3.2 million) and
we get 320 million gallons of water consumption per day.So at the estimated out put of the new Carlsbad
desalination plant is 50 million gallons per day you can see the dilemma.We need quite a few conversion plants around
the state just to break even.And, at
$1 billion per plant (2014 dollars) we will be extinct soon.Next topic please.